Access or Excel(VBA) ?

[behedwin]

I have for some time been building staff managing tools in excel with VBA and userforms.
I have only googled what i need and solved things by asking on this and other forums.

I have never looked at Access but i understand it could have the potential to do what i am doing in Excel but maybe in a better and safer way. However i have not spent much time testing Access and when i have done i get stuck quite fast.

Now i got an offer from my work, i got some extra money to spend on some course.
Now im looking at a Access beginners course or a VBA stage 2 course.

What do you think would be best...
If i want to keep building forms and manage data about my companys staff, have both myself work in the form and others... is access better to evolve my tools ore stick to VBA and Excel?

Thanks

 

[ranman256]

If you ever want to ask questions of your data, like:
how much, during what time, with whom, etc...
then you want access.

In access you dont have to separate spreadsheets into different months, or deparments,...
you just dump all data into table(s) then ask questions.

Also, you dont have to know VB. Most everything can be done via macros.
This is probably what you want.

 

[xenou]

To be honest, so very much depends on what your ultimate goals are - what kind of tool, how is it to be used. And there are hundreds of software packages that handle things like this so you might want to investigate what's on the market.

If your goal is to learn SQL and databases, great. If it's to develop a tool, you don't need Access but you certainly can use it - as well as any other relational database platform or development framework.

 

[Micron]

Besides, managing workbook sharing is a pain. Access is so much more flexible in this regard. Security is a topic in itself. The thing with Access is, you can't prepare too much before you dig in as there's so many things you can do and it's easy to do them poorly. Suggest these sources - if not now, then sometime before you get too deep.

Normalization is paramount. Diagramming maybe not so much for some people.

Normalization Parts I, II, III, IV, and V
http://rogersaccessblog.blogspot.ca/2008/12/what-is-normalization-part-i.html
and/or
http://holowczak.com/database-normalization/

Entity-Relationship Diagramming: Part I, II, III and IV
http://rogersaccessblog.blogspot.ca/2009/01/entity-relationship-diagramming-part-i.html

How do I Create an Application in Microsoft Access?
http://rogersaccessblog.blogspot.ca/2009/05/how-do-i-create-application-in.html

Important for success:
One source about how to name things - http://access.mvps.org/access/general/gen0012.htm
What not to use in names - http://allenbrowne.com/AppIssueBadWord.html
About Auto Numbers
- http://www.utteraccess.com/wiki/Autonumbers
- http://access.mvps.org/access/general/gen0025.htm

The evils of lookup fields - http://access.mvps.org/access/lookupfields.htm
Table and PK design tips - http://www.fmsinc.com/free/newtips/primarykey.asp
About calculated table fields - http://allenbrowne.com/casu-14.html